Ora Funky Cat review

5

Distinctive Chinese EV jumps into the UK’s family market. Will it land on its feet?

by Illya Verpraet
10 February 2023

It’s a common playbook for emerging car manufacturers: launch with a product that might be a long way from the establishment on quality but it’s so keenly priced that it’s impossible to ignore. Then gradually ramp up the quality, build development know-how over multiple decades and gain consumer acceptance.

The latest entrant to the UK car market is a little more impatient. The Ora Funky Cat isn’t playing the same value game as its MG 4 EV compatriot. The car was originally announced with a very attractive price, but Ora’s UK sales director told Autocar: “Once we saw the car and realised how high-quality the interior was, and really understood the personality of it, we realised we’ve got something really quite special and therefore we can be quite targeted in the market where it’s going to be.”

I was all ready to mock the Ora Funky Cat’s silly name. But frankly, when the best that other manufacturers can come up with is unimaginative dross like bZ4X, EQE SUV or HR-V, I’m all for something memorable, friendly and, well, funky.
Illya Verpraet
Road Tester

It does still undercut medium EVs like the Volkswagen ID 3 and Kia Niro EV, but there is no hiding from established competition like the Vauxhall Corsa Electric, the Fiat 500 or, indeed, the MG 4. It’s a bold strategy for an unknown brand.

The company behind the Ora Funky Cat is Great Wall Motors and it isn’t entirely new to the UK. It once sold the Great Wall Steed pick-up truck here, but it is probably hoping that vehicle – and its two-star review – has long since been forgotten. It takes only a brief look at the Funky Cat to know that it is in an entirely different league from what the Chinese car industry could muster 10 years ago. Today, ‘new energy vehicles’ – as EVs are called over there – have become a specialty of Chinese manufacturers, so could Ora follow MG to be a smash hit in Europe?

Ora Funky Cat news

ora cat front three quarter
The £31,995 Ora Cat is the first car to land on UK shores
How Ora will make Funky Cat a UK success
How Ora will make Funky Cat a UK success
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Range at a glance

The Funky Cat launches with just one powertrain and one trim, the First Edition. In time, it is likely to be joined by a longer-range version with a 61kWh battery and a sportier GT model. In China, there is a base model with less power, but it’s unlikely to be offered here.

First Edition is reasonably well equipped but lacks features like heated seats, matrix LED lights and a panoramic roof. Some of those ought to make it onto the options list at some point.

Version Power
48kWh 169bhp

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Ora Funky Cat news

ora cat front three quarter
The £31,995 Ora Cat is the first car to land on UK shores
How Ora will make Funky Cat a UK success
How Ora will make Funky Cat a UK success

DESIGN & STYLING

02 GWM ORA Funky Cat RT 2023 rear corner

GWM has been around since 1984 and has built everything from trucks to city cars. Today, it has a number of brands aside from Ora, which is focused on mildly posh small cars. Haval makes SUVs of various sizes, Tank makes body-on-frame off-roaders, GWM Pick-up is self-explanatory and Wey is a luxury brand. The latter has already touched down in Germany and GWM plans to bring Wey to the UK as well.

Clearly, it’s not some ephemeral start-up, as is reinforced by the fact that BMW has a joint venture with GWM to develop a new EV platform that will underpin the next generation of electric Mini.

The front end is mostly unspoiled by styling gimmicks. Chrome ‘teeth’ and embossed hexagons are the only exceptions. This First Edition has no front parking sensors. They are not essential on a car of this size, anyway, and there is a front camera.
Richard Lane
Deputy road test editor

The Funky Cat uses a different, GWM-exclusive platform named LEMON (it’s not clear what, if anything, that acronym stands for), which can also accommodate petrol engines, hybrid powertrains and, intriguingly, a hydrogen fuel cell.

GWM’s literature about LEMON talks at some length about light weight, which is encouraging. Our Funky Cat test car tipped the scales at 1580kg, which makes it only a few kilos heavier than the smaller Vauxhall Corsa Electric.

For now, the Funky Cat comes in just one spec. The First Edition is powered by a 48kWh (45kWh usable) battery pack and a single 169bhp front motor. The car’s design has clearly taken inspiration from various retro cars of the past two decades. Unlike the copycat cars China was producing 10 years ago, though, this is very much its own thing, and it’s refreshing to see a friendly face among the blacked-out AMG Lines and M Sports.

The mostly clean shapes are punctuated by quirky details, such as the hexagons on the car’s ‘cheeks’, oddly 1990s-style alloy wheels and the apparent lack of rear lights. It has rear lights, of course, but the main clusters are quite small and mounted low and they are supplemented by a higher light bar.

The Funky Cat’s classic rounded shapes might make you think it’s Mini hatchback-sized but, at 4235mm long, it’s only slightly shorter than a Volkswagen Golf (4284mm) and quite a bit longer than a Corsa (4060mm), never mind a Mini Electric (3850mm).

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INTERIOR

09 GWM ORA Funky Cat RT 2023 dashboard

Step inside the Funky Cat and on first impression the claim that this is a premium product rings true. Most surfaces above waist level are soft touch, and the red microsuede material that lines the dashboard and door cards feels plusher than the textured rubber you might ordinarily find there.

The seats are upholstered in an unusually soft synthetic leather. It gets a little sweaty on long journeys, but it’s a cut above the plain vinyl you sit on in an MG 5 EV. The bright red and beige colour scheme won’t be to everyone’s taste, but it’s a nice change from the gloomy blackness of so many modern cars. Green and black are available if you prefer something more subdued.

The key is roughly car-shaped, like a Porsche’s, and very heavy, like a Bentley’s. The rotary drive selector isn’t the most intuitive to use.
Matt Prior
Editor-at-large

Unfortunately, some of the controls are less pleasing. The rotary drive selector doesn’t feel like it’s connected to anything and the detents of the BMW-style indicator stalk (it always returns to centre) are quite weak, making it easy to indicate the wrong way.

The ‘chrome’ switch panel in the centre of the dash may be inspired by the Mini but doesn’t look or feel as convincing. In the Funky Cat, the toggle switches control a number of climate functions, but not the temperature. For that, you need to tap the very small up and down icons on the screen. Meanwhile, functions like the headlight aim and driving mode, which could happily have been integrated into the touchscreen, get dedicated buttons.

Better news comes in the form of the available cabin space. Front passengers are unlikely to be short on storage thanks to trays and bins of various sizes in the centre console, as well as two cupholders and a spot for glasses in the roof.

Rear passengers enjoy generous leg room for this size of car, but rear accommodation is affected by the battery pack raising the floor height, so the seating position isn’t ideal and head room is limited. There’s a single charge port back there and no air vents, but that’s not unusual in this class.

GWM must have sacrificed some boot space in favour of rear-seat accommodation, though, as the Funky Cat has only slightly more luggage space than a Mini Electric.

Multimedia

At launch, the Funky Cat does without Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. GWM told us that the functionality will be added in an over-the-air update by the summer.

Navigation, DAB radio, Bluetooth and, oddly, Deezer, are built in to the 10.25in touchscreen’s interface, but for podcasts or any other streaming service, you’ll have to use Bluetooth. It provided a relatively stable connection, but it is impractical compared with phone mirroring. The speakers can also sound a little thin when competing with road noise on the motorway.

Generally, the system’s interface is fairly simple but it suffers from a messy design and tiny on-screen buttons – particularly those for the navigation’s keyboard. The nav itself works well and  will show how much range you’ll have left at your destination.

Pressing the voice command button or saying ‘Hello Ora’ triggers the voice assistant and causes a cartoon character to pop up on the screen, but we found it was unable to parse fairly simple commands like “find the nearest Gridserve charger”.

ENGINES & PERFORMANCE

20 GWM ORA Funky Cat RT 2023 under bonnet gubbins

With an electric motor, power and torque are pretty easy to come by and don’t hurt efficiency in the same way that a bigger engine would. Making that power usable is a bigger engineering challenge, and one that the MG 5 and Mégane E-Tech Electric haven’t entirely met. Be too enthusiastic in one of those and you get copious wheelspin and abrupt interventions from the traction control, whereas a Mini Electric and Cupra Born have far faster and smoother-acting systems.

Unfortunately, the Funky Cat belongs to the former category. On a slightly damp track, it powered to 62mph in 8.2sec, a tenth quicker than its maker’s quoted time. However, achieving that time requires careful throttle control to avoid spooking the traction control, which can be disabled but reactivates automatically over 35mph. It will let the front wheels spin wildly for an instant before shutting down the power with an audible thump. On the road, it’s a niggle rather than a problem, but nevertheless other EVs do it better.

It struggled at one point to maintain 70mph on a moderate hill.
Matt Saunders
Road test editor

The Funky Cat’s variable performance at higher speed is worth discussing as well. That it reaches 100mph in 25.9sec, even though its top speed is supposedly 99mph, is academic. That it is only marginally quicker from 30-70mph than the far less powerful Fiat 500 is mildly disappointing.

However, that it struggled at one point to maintain 70mph on a moderate hill when its battery was a quarter full was a slight concern. All EVs lose some performance when their batteries get low, which is why we ensure they are at least 80% full before performance testing, but we have not previously experienced a drop this noticeable.

The Funky Cat offers three levels of regenerative braking, in addition to a true one-pedal mode. Even if you lift off brusquely, the regen will build gradually. Conversely, if you try to slow down gently, the level of deceleration can be hard to judge because the response is delayed. As a result, most testers avoided the stronger modes. This is easier said than done, because it will occasionally (but not consistently) reset to the strongest mode when turning off the car.

As well as the traction control, it was clear during our braking tests that the ABS lacks a final layer of polish. When braking from 75mph, it would briefly lock the front wheels before the ABS kicked in. After a few successive stops, there was also a strong smell of brakes, though the stopping distances didn’t increase dramatically. A stopping distance of 60.9m is about midway between the Peugeot e-2008’s 57.5m and the Renault Mégane E-Tech Electric’s 63.7m – both also recorded on a damp surface.

RIDE & HANDLING

22 GWM ORA Funky Cat RT 2023 front corner

With an all-new car on an all-new platform from an all-new manufacturer, the chassis is where things can easily go wrong. The sight not of Michelin, Bridgestone or even Hankook tyres but of Giti GitiComfort tyres doesn’t inspire much confidence either. However, we’re pleased to report that, with the exception of the previously discussed traction control, there is nothing seriously wrong with the way the Funky Cat negotiates a set of corners or a challenging surface.

Be in no doubt: this is no hot hatch, and the Mini Electric, Fiat 500 and Cupra Born are far sharper tools that will entertain more willingly down a country road. For that, the Ora exhibits too much body roll, and the light steering (even in its Sport setting) imparts no feedback whatsoever. Butting up against the traction control also discourages spirited driving, as does the stability control, which noisily shuts down any rotation on a trailing throttle before it has a chance to develop.

The 18in alloys on the test car are the only choice of wheel for the time being. The flower design is very reminiscent of the wheels on the first-generation Renault Mégane Coupé of the mid-1990s, which does make them look somewhat dated.
Illya Verpraet
Road Tester

With that said, the Giti tyres defied expectations by providing perfectly adequate grip, even on very wet roads. Perhaps a different tyre might add some life to the steering, but then again, it might not. The body roll, while noticeable, builds gradually, and the slowish steering is precise enough, and more predictable in its response than some variable-ratio systems.

Comfort and isolation

Similarly, there’s little to complain about when the road gets bumpy. The suspension is neither especially soft nor especially hard, but it’s never harsh or wallowy. It just soaks up most bumps without complaint, delivering a ride that is pretty relaxed and composed for the class.

Noise isolation is a major weak point, though. There’s more suspension noise than in rivals, but it’s the road and wind noise when you leave town that can get wearing. We recorded 68dBA at 50mph and 72dBA at 70mph, respectively 4dBA and 1dBA more than in the Fiat 500, a car which is obviously positioned as a city car. It doesn’t even bear comparison with the impressively refined Cupra Born or even the Vauxhall Corsa Electric.

The seats are quite soft, making them inviting for short journeys, but they the lack lumbar support to take the strain out of longer drives.

Assisted driving notes

Euro NCAP named the Funky Cat the safest small family car for 2023 thanks to its excellent occupant protection in a crash, as well as the comprehensive driver assistance features that come as standard. In addition to the obligatory lane keep assist and automatic emergency braking, it has blindspot monitoring, adaptive cruise control with lane following, and driver monitoring.

Unfortunately, the lane keep assist is quite over-eager and will make steering corrections even when you’re nowhere near the line. It takes quite a few taps of the screen to disable, too. The driver monitoring system is also quite the disciplinarian and will berate you for looking out of the side window a fraction too long.

The cruise control is disconcertingly late to slow for stationary traffic ahead, yet it slows unnecessarily and jerkily for the faintest ‘corners’ on motorways. But active lane following is fairly smooth and blindspot monitoring works well.

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MPG & RUNNING COSTS

01 GWM ORA Funky Cat RT 2023 lead track

Ora is not aiming for the bargain prices that MG is. Even so, at £31,995 it is still one of the cheaper EVs you can buy. And at the time of publication, you can actually buy one: Ora has cars in stock and you won’t have to wait months before it arrives, like you do with a lot of cars at the moment, particularly EVs.

If you do choose the Funky Cat, that means walking past the larger and much longer-range MG 4, as well as cars like the Vauxhall Corsa Electric, Peugeot e-208 and Renault Zoe. Those are slightly smaller, but longer-range and more mature-feeling cars.

At launch, every Funky Cat is a First Edition, and you only get to choose a colour scheme. Future versions will offer a bigger battery and options like heated seats and a panoramic roof.
Richard Lane
Deputy road test editor

And that feeling of immaturity could be a factor that puts buyers off. The Funky Cat is littered with little things that signal that this car could have benefited from another six months of development. We have previously mentioned the frustrating indicator stalk, but there are other bugs like some of the settings randomly resetting. The keyless entry won’t always unlock the car. The handbrake will sometimes let you drag the stationary rear wheels forwards. The power steering motor and the vacuum pump for the power brakes are very noisy. Consider also some of the poorly tuned systems like the ABS, traction control and cruise control and it adds up to an overall experience that feels a bit too much like a public beta test.

An economy gauge that couldn’t be reset made efficiency readings somewhat fraught, but we saw figures between 3.0mpkWh and 3.4mpkWh in mixed driving during a mild winter week. That’s quite some way short of the 3.8mpkWh we saw from the larger, faster Cupra Born and Kia Niro EV we tested in spring, or the Fiat 500 that we also tested in winter. It works out to a real-world range of around 150 miles, which is nothing to write home about these days.

We had an interesting experience rapid-charging the Funky Cat, with failed charges at 50kW Gridserve chargers. It turned out these machines had yet to be updated on Gridserve’s side to work with the Ora. GWM says that this will be fixed soon, but like the absence of Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, it’s something you would expect to be sorted before launch.

When we found a 150kW unit to do the charging test, the Funky Cat maintained 50kW – close to its maximum rate of 64kW – for most of the session. Even so, an e-208 or MG 4 can charge at 100kW or more.

Ora is offering a five-year unlimited-mileage vehicle warranty, and an eight-year, 100,000-mile battery warranty. It is not the longest warranty but does give some reassurance that this new brand stands behind its product.

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VERDICT

25 GWM ORA Funky Cat RT 2023 static

Building cars is hard. We may criticise new models for the finer points of ride and handling, minor practicality issues, or electric range that’s slightly behind the class average but, by and large, all modern cars feel like thoroughly engineered products. And that’s a credit to the long and rigorous test and development procedures, as well as more than a century of iterative improvement.

So when a new-to-Europe brand launches a new car like the Funky Cat, we must praise it for hitting a competitive mark in some, if not quite all, ways. It will draw in potential buyers with likeably cheerful styling and a plush interior. For its size, it’s quite keenly priced, so if someone was considering a Fiat 500 or Mini Electric as a predominantly urban EV, the Funky Cat could be a viable alternative that offers a bit more space.

Compared like for like with cars such as the Vauxhall Corsa Electric, however, it lags on range, charging, long-distance comfort, ease of use, multimedia and assisted driving (no matter what NCAP says). What’s more, a lot of the finer details, like missing features and system glitches, suggest this car isn’t finished and needs another cycle of development.